RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

The Con­cerned Mus­lims of Trinidad and To­ba­go (CMTT) launched its “Haiti Emer­gency Re­lief Project 2021” over the week­end.

Haiti was still re­cov­er­ing from a mas­sive 7.0 earth­quake in 2010, when it was again shak­en on Au­gust 14, 2021, by a 7.2 earth­quake. This earth­quake de­stroyed a large num­ber of hous­es and build­ings main­ly in the south­west­ern vil­lages in Haiti.

Over 2,000 deaths were record­ed up to yes­ter­day, scores are still miss­ing and over 12,000 peo­ple were crit­i­cal­ly in­jured and hos­pi­talised. Thou­sands of peo­ple were al­so left home­less in the wake of the dis­as­ter, with fam­i­lies now sleep­ing on the streets and at any avail­able pub­lic area in tents and in un­san­i­tary con­di­tions, with dis­eases break­ing out now a ma­jor threat.

CMTT PRO Im­ti­az Mo­hammed said the Hait­ian peo­ple are des­per­ate and in dire need of drink­ing wa­ter, grain and canned food prod­ucts, crack­ers, snacks, soap, tooth­paste, tooth­brush­es, toi­let pa­per, san­i­tary nap­kins, de­ter­gents, new clothes on­ly for adults and chil­dren, tow­els, bed­sheets, blan­kets, slip­pers and shoes for adults and chil­dren, can­dles, match­es, lanterns, torch­lights, "D" size bat­ter­ies for torch­light and lanterns, mos­qui­to re­pel­lents, mos­qui­to nets, sleep­ing bags, mat­tress­es, tents, clean­ing and dis­in­fec­tant prod­ucts.

"CMTT is kind­ly seek­ing the as­sis­tance in cash or you can con­tribute items from the list pro­vid­ed, as CMTT would like to pro­vide the earth­quake vic­tims with all the men­tioned prod­ucts and we an­tic­i­pate a bud­get of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $500,000 should achieve this goal," Mo­hammed said.

CMTT would like to ship a few 40-ft con­tain­ers with re­lief sup­plies to Haiti by the third week in Sep­tem­ber 2021 and is work­ing with its con­tacts in Haiti to re­ceive and de­liv­er the sup­plies to the af­fect­ed peo­ple.

CMTT will be send­ing a team to Haiti, just as it did in 2010, to as­sist with the dis­tri­b­u­tion and would like to thank every­one for their con­tri­bu­tions in ad­vance.

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion and drop-offs, mem­bers of the pub­lic can con­tact: Imam Sher­az Ali-682-4474; Imam Haseeb Az­iz 760-7117; Imam Shaul Ali 684-1700, Man­war Ali 772-026 or Br. Im­ti­az Mo­hammed 680-3460

Cit­i­zens can al­so as­sist with build­ing ma­te­ri­als re­quired for the re­con­struc­tion of some hous­es and to as­sist in the build­ing of tem­po­rary shel­ters in Haiti. The items need­ed are: Half and three quar­ter inch ply­wood; Wood - 2x2 , 2x4, 1x4 - 20ft lengths; Gal­va­nize - 20ft lengths; Nails-2” and 2 1/2; Con­crete blocks - 4” and 6” and Ce­ment.